Free Republic

"What does Russia have on Trump?", asks Nancy Pelosi. The better question is, what did Putin and Rouhani have on obama? It's June of 2001. George W. Bush is President. Bush has a meeting with Vladimir Putin and later said"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. "I was able to get a sense of his soul. "He's a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that's the beginning...

Four years ago, David Axelrod was exuberantly riding the Obama wave. Today, the poor guy sounds decidedly down in the dumps. Check out this line from an email he sent to people on the Obama campaign list: "I don't know how this is going to end. But no matter what, I know each of us will have given this campaign everything we've got." Yikes! Take two Prozac and call me in the morning if you're still trailing by five in the Gallup poll! More after the jump.

* Hopefully, Joe Biden loses it and loses his lips... * Benghazi-gate, shrinking-middle-class, gets most attention....

* 'Liberal extremists' (See: Obama's strategy)~~ * Democrats' Culture of corruption~~ * Obama - lieslong list here or here or you can use the phrase 'Flip Flop.' See list

Do you know what's scarier than the possibility that President Obama could be re-elected? It's that in a second term, he would double down on his failed policies. Don't take my word for it; he's admitted it on the campaign stump. In a speech to his fellow cultural icons in Hollywood, he said, "Everything we fought for in 2008 is on the line here in 2012. And I need your help to finish what we started. ... We've come too far to turn back now." Note that Obama did not say this: "My agenda obviously isn't working, so I have...

Can there be political bubbles like financial bubbles? Financial bubbles, inflated by hopes and dreams, burst when reality negates any possibility that those hopes and dreams will be realized. At that point, sky high stock or bond or real estate prices come crashing down to earth. Can the same thing happen in politics? Can a skilled politician, who has become popular with soaring rhetoric and promises, deflate when it starts becoming clear that he is not going to deliver? Of course, I am thinking about our president. Mitt Romney demonstrated in the first presidential debate that the considerable gap between...

President Richard Nixon won a second term in the White House, by being the avenger of left-wing cultural chaos. Will challenger Mitt Romney win a first term as President, because he provides a similar alternative? This year’s election will mark the fortieth anniversary of another historic contest. In November of 1972 President Richard Nixon defeated his opponent George McGovern in the Electoral College by a landslide margin of 49 states to 1. Setting the U.S. presidential record for the widest margin of victory among the popular vote, Nixon received nearly 18 million more votes than McGovern. While Nixon is...

The first presidential debate of 2012 is now behind us. And Republican challenger Mitt Romney won it handily. No one challenges this verdict. Even President Obama’s most ardent supporters concede it by way of the truly laughable excuses to which they’ve resorted in accounting for the decisive drubbing that their candidate received. But while the conventional wisdom concerning the victor is sound enough, the conventional wisdom concerning the debate’s loser is not so much. Obama, we are told, was “off his game.” From Denver’s altitude to personal family issues, every conceivable rationale has been offered by the President’s admirers to...

You know there's trouble on the left when the MSNBC people declare Mitt Romney the winner in the first presidential debate. I mean, there was wailing and gnashing of teeth on the uber-liberal cable network: Why, oh, why did our guy look so awkward? Even though we don't believe in God, we'd now like him to help our president if he can. Gov. Romney won the debate because the economy is bad and the president could not explain how he's going to make it better. The governor kept pounding President Barack Obama in the midsection, pointing out that his vision...

By the time of Thursday night's debate between Vice President Biden and Congressman Ryan, the polls will reflect the early consequences of President Obama's disastrous debate performance from Wednesday night. Mitt Romney had a superb night and the contrast between his calm and in-command performance and that of a flailing, rambling president could not have been sharper, and indeed it could not have been more disorienting for the Chicago Gang running the president's re-election campaign. The day after the president's face-plant in front of 67 million viewers, the geniuses behind the nation's dismal economy instructed the president to go ugly,...

Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate has utterly unhinged the Obama campaign. Last week they were happily jabbering about Romney's record at Bain Capital, implying that he had killed a man's wife, stating that he was a tax cheat and blaming him for outsourcing jobs. This week they're stuck defending Barack Obama's $700 billion cuts to Medicare and spending addiction. That leaves the Democrats with one solution: get ugly. Joe Biden led off the festivities in Virginia this week, where he informed the population of 49-percent-black Danville that "he said in the first 100 days, he's...

One cannot help noticing the struggle between Barack Obama’s natural instincts and the serene and benevolent persona he projects to the world. Beneath the visage of a cosmetically populist, post-racial, post-partisan reformer who wants to “perfect” America and to have “millionaires and billionaires” “pay their fair share” is just another condescending, self-important, sarcastic, academic liberal Democrat, who believes in false consciousness and in scholastic theories that success in life can be attributed to birth or luck or community but not to individual effort and grit. Obama may be talented at self-fashioning, but he cannot maintain his public face constantly. The...

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, the two Republican candidates battling one another in a runoff for the U.S. Senate nomination, say the source of their opponent's funding is an important campaign issue. Which campaign is drawing more donations from Texas voters? Which campaign is dominated by money from out-of-state groups? Neither answer is clear-cut. That’s because the Federal Election Commission doesn’t require campaigns to report details about contributions of less than $200 from individuals. The funds raised from these "minor" donors are reported as one lump sum, and are referred to as "unitemized" in...

A spokesperson for the Rick Santorum campaign inadvertently used the phrase “radical Islamic policies” to describe Barack Obama's theology. Regardless of whether that was a freudian slip or intentionally said, a newly discovered tactic of the Muslim Brotherhood has been discovered; it is both extremely radical and deceptive. It's called “muruna” and it seems to be working...

Let’s stipulate that this is purely conjecture. OK. But can you remember or find an instance in the history of the United States when voters changed presidents during a war? Go ahead and look it up. No, LBJ and Vietnam didn’t meet that test. He quit. He wasn’t voted out...

. . . o kick off the GOP candidates’ debate when last night’s moderator brought up the question of his ex’s allegation of his desire for an “open marriage,” Gingrich seemed to turn the tables by blasting the questioner and mainstream media generally for zeroing in on tawdry affairs in a presidential campaign. Gingrich’s retaliation drew a standing ovation from the debate audience. Not even the Ron Paulites have shown that kind of passion. Knight in shining armor If there’s a point in this it may be that each candidate is a complicated mix . . .

Will the Brenham Ranch, owned by former Judge Paul Pressler, be looked back upon as the place where the plans for a Republican coronation were upset? Will it mark the beginning of a surge of support for the candidacy of former Senator Rick Santorum for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination? It was at that ranch that 150 evangelical Protestant Christian leaders met to choose a candidate whom they could all unite behind. Speculation over the meeting, who attended it, and who would receive the nod of support from among former Governor Rick Perry, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich...

Here is an interesting article on the temperaments of the 7 GOP candidates for president. It's a companion piece to an earlier article on Obama's temperament. Full article is here: http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2011/12/31/republican-temperament-a-guide-to-the-presidential-candidates/ Excerpt: Republican Temperament: A Guide to the Presidential Candidates By Andrew Atkins, on December 31st, 2011 Newt is an engineer, Romney is an administrator, Bachmann is an advocate, Santorum is a conservator, Paul is an organizer, Perry is an operator, Huntsman is an entertainer, and Obama is a mentor. GOP offers a diverse field for 2012 As the presidential primary race heats up, the seven Republican candidates are fighting...

Mitt Romney has picked up a major, if still unofficial, endorsement in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Former President George H.W. Bush told the Houston Chronicle he believes Romney is the best candidate in the race—though he stopped short of officially endorsing his 2012 bid. "I think Romney is the best choice for us," Bush told the Houston Chronicle. "I like Perry, but he doesn't seem to be going anywhere; he's not surging forward." The ex-president, who is personally close to Romney, praised the former governor's "stability, experience, principles." "He's mature and reasonable—not a bomb thrower," Bush said,...

I have no clear idea whether Pastor Robert Jeffress is correct in referring to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more colloquially known as the Mormons, as “a cult.” There do seem to be one or two points of similarity. The Mormons have a supreme leader, known as the prophet or the president, whose word is allegedly supreme. They can be ordered to turn upon and shun any members who show any signs of backsliding. They have distinctive little practices, such as the famous underwear, to mark them off from other mortals, and they are said to be...